Mom to be retried in baby's meth poisoning case (California)

The Associated Press
CORONA- A woman accused of breast-feeding her son methamphetamine-laced milk will be retried a third time on a murder charge, a judge ruled Monday.

"It was abundantly clear to the court that the cause of death of the victim was due to methamphetamine intoxication," Riverside County Judge Patrick Magers said in rejecting a defense request to dismiss the charge.

Amy Leanne Prien, who is currently serving a 10-year sentence for felony child endangerment, said she woke up Jan. 19, 2002, and found her son dead in bed.

Prien, 34, of Mead Valley, was convicted of second-degree murder in 2003, but an appeals court overturned the conviction citing flawed jury instructions. The district attorney's office retried the case, but a judge declared a mistrial in June after a jury deadlocked 6-6.

In the most recent trial, the prosecution argued Prien, who had smoked meth for 10 to 15 years, breast-fed her child after smoking even though she knew it could damage him.

When Prien was arrested, blood tests showed the methamphetamine levels in her blood were within a potentially lethal range, but police never tested her breast milk.

Her attorney, Joe Reichmann of Los Angeles, argued the charges were based on "make-believe science" because authorities never knew how much of the drugs were in her milk.

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/healthscience/homepage/article_1243577.php